How to (not to) meet your creator after binge
In Uswaz, with the help of the grand lady Mama Mwakilambo, we are always attempting suicide. Many are the days we miss death by the skin of our teeth – over an uholy drink. We provoke our guardian angels to take to the good Lord our life files to append his last signature.
Mama Mwakilambo is guilty as charged for abetting in our suicidal missions. Some of us in this sprawling Uswaz make it their death others are lucky to continue living the land of the living. Mama Mwakilambo supplies Uswaz with the most potent drinks – drinks that can knock down an Indian elephant. She is a crusader for ensuring that we cook our own livers.
Hussein the Uswaz wag’s brother succumbed to “liver” cooking (cirrhosis of the liver) a couple of weeks ago. This guy died after swallowing enough of Mama Mwakilambo’s on an empty stomach.
During the funeral, it dawned on me that we value the dead that the living – a Mercedes hearse, flowers, and splendor – our Bongo style of sending off the departed. So this guy had rich relatives? Why for God’s sake did they not give him food? I had seen it coming.
His hair was turning yellow and it was a matter of days before his life files were submitted to the creator for signature.
As it is, I have not right to talk about the dead. As I am always doing rounds around it. Take for instance, the last time I swallowed a couple of liters of whiskey.
You want to know how it feels when you are in a near-death situation? I will do my best to describe the feeling.
The morning after a binge, I am caught in a hurricane of foul mood. My eyes are bloodshot and can open a slit. They are fuzzy and the bells of hell are doing dingalingalinga inside my skull.
I have practically been knocked out- I feel like Kigoma –bound train just ran over my body and I am left for dead. Indeed, I feel as if a regiment of Makonde dancers have moved inside my head. The silly thing is that missing death by a whisker does not stop me from another deadly binge.
